Collins Mabel. The Locked Room: A True Story of Experiences in Spiritualism

London: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1920. — 174 p.

In this story I have gathered together episodes from real life, which reveal some of the dangers that lie in the path of those who practise what is called “ spiritualism.” During the war this mode of intercourse with the invisible has so greatly increased that it seems to be time for those who know what the dangers are to tell what they know. In some of my books I have expressed my conviction that the practice is dangerous, and I am often asked why I think so ; I now relate some of the events which cause me to be so convinced. If disembodied spirits of men and women were all that visited the séance room, the seeker for communication with them might only incur the danger of being selfish in calling upon them to come into the earth sphere. But any form of selfishness is the first step in black magic, and this form of it opens the way to elemental beings, man’s enemies. These beings are described in Bulwer Lytton’s novels and Benson’s